What’s Wrong With The French Intensive Method?

Mel, I’m landing on your websites and discovering Square Foot Gardening, which is very similar to the French Intensive Gardening I’ve studied over the years.

My answer started by saying that they are actually totally opposite. Opposite in the amount of space you need, tools, work, spacing, experience and need to learn. I’m not knocking the FIM, but it came to us as a farming method from the outskirts of Paris and other French cities. It was a huge improvement on single row gardening, which unfortunately the world still practices, but it was still very complicated and extremely labor intensive. I’ve gone into an explanation of it in recent response to Linda, but wanted to expand on it, so here is the full response.

SFG = Opposite of FIM

What a hassle!

SFG is just the opposite of the FIM as far as condensed raised bed gardening goes. Here are my comments. FIM requires you to dig down 18″ deep to improve the existing soil. Since a shovel only digs 9″, you have to “double dig” and place one layer in one spot and the lower layer in another and then you work your way down digging trenches in your yard, putting some soil here and there and gradually filling in your extra deep trenches. I think by adding the top soil of one to the bottom of another. This is all to put the good soil down deep where the roots might want to grow. That’s a lot of work and takes a herculean effort every spring. They suggest you add the good stuff like peat moss, compost and barnyard manure in the soil too to keep improving them.

I did a survey when I first invented SFG of how long it takes to improve your soil. Serious gardeners averaged about seven years, then they had a perfect soil. What happens then?

They move! To add to the futility and humor of it all, a young gardener buys their house and I can hear the wife saying to the husband, “Let’s pave over that garden area so we can park our boat there.” All that work, all that effort, seven long years. That’s worse than a prison sentence. Most serious gardeners “do time” for that number of years. SFG on the other hand starts out the first year NO DIGGING, just build a box, lay it on the ground, add weed fabric to the bottom and fill it with a perfect soil mix that has no weed seeds in it.

Disadvantages of the French Intensive Method

The method for the FIM which I think is in 3′ wide beds (SFG is in 4′ wide beds making it 35% better) is as follows. You space your seeds 4-6″ apart according to the seed packet across the 3′ wide bed, all in a row. Then the next row is spaced the same distance but in between the first row. That allows you to move the second row closer to the first row by about an inch. The trouble is that you lose a half of a space on the end, eliminating the savings on that one inch row spacing.

On the other hand, SFG divides a 4’x4′ bed into common 12″x12″ spaces and all plants fit in that same space with either 1, 4, 9 or 16 plants per square foot with no wasted space.

The next disadvantage of FIM is when you harvest a crop, let’s say it’s two rows across the 3′ bed and you’re ready to replant with a different crop. That crop, because it might be 3″ or 9″ apart, wont’ fit in that exact same spacing you have vacated and you either have too much wasted space or too many crops planted. SFG plants only one square foot at a time and that same space will be suitable for your next and every other crop that follows. If you want more than one head of cabbage or 4 heads of lettuce, you just plant more in additional squares in different locations. That spreads that plant apart so they are not as prone to disease or insects spreading.

And the list goes on. I could spend another thousand words telling you that the FIM was designed for farming right outside of Paris and not for home backyard gardeners, yet I remember when it was introduced to our country back in the 60s or 70s and became a huge hit. Every garden writer studied it intently until they could understand all of the intricacies of the soil prep and the plant spacing and could write about it in their magazine and newspaper articles.

SFG has gotten a poor reception from all of the professionals and the experts. Why? Because it’s too easy, too simple, and probably just can’t work. So we have appealed to the beginners who don’t want a lot of work, tools, digging, and complicated gardening techniques. My question to you, is: how can we attract that audience and get more of them to start gardening when they realize there is no digging, no tilling, no weeding, and no work?

In addition, SFG produces 100% of the harvest in only 20% of the space, 10% of the water, 5% of the seeds and 2% of the work. I ramble on but the subject is passionate with me and my goal is to change the world of gardening from a hand me down system of farming by the square foot and now square meter gardening system. Think of how this could change the world, change the environment.

2 Comments

sophie nyJune 8, 2012 at 8:28 pm -

I have no qualms with SFG…I actually use many principles. SFG was my first gardening book I have owned. FIM gardening builds soil. SFG you buy “perfect” soil. Where did that soil come from? Who is building that soil? I agree that FIM is not for all but building topsoil is something we all should be concerned about. It takes 500 years to build up one inch of topsoil in nature.

Mel BartholomewJune 30, 2012 at 5:21 am -

Sophie,

I know you don’t have any qualms about SFG. When someone says they use some of the principles, or many of their principles, I worry a little bit, because SFG is a total system. It would be like you clasping your hands together, and every finger is interlocked with the others. They are a strong, full defense, if you will. That closed clench is very strong and prominent. But in order to do that, all the fingers have to be clasped together, and since they do fit together, it works. As soon as you take one of those out of place, there’s a gap. This is where some people don’t have as much success or, possibly, don’t have the full success they could have with SFG. They leave something out, thinking that it’s not important.

Now you do say that the FIM, French Intensive Method, builds soil. Yes it does, at a tremendous cost of labor and materials. Remember when I wrote the first book, it said to dig down six inches and mix in six more inches of these perfect ingredients, and you’ll have 12 inches of improved soil. Well the word that I got around the country as I traveled and did lectures was, “Yeah, it works well. But that was a lot of work.” I thought, well, if there’s going to be a lot of work, people aren’t going to do it, and a lot are going to take a shortcut.

That’s when I investigated how much depth the plant really needs if the soil is perfect and that turned out to be always six inches, despite what all the experts will tell you. So, now the ALL NEW book says not to dig into your existing ground, don’t improve it, don’t add anything to it, don’t even worry about it. You don’t need any tools now for the Square Foot Garden, you don’t need any testing, you don’t have to worry about that, NPK of your existing soil or the pH of it, because we are not going to use it. If you make use the formula for Mel’s mix, you will have a perfect soil with all the NPK nutrients the plants need and a near neutral pH, you don’t need to test for it. You don’t need to learn how to spell pH.

You asked where the soil comes from for the perfect Mel’s mix. It comes from all natural organic earth products. They come right out of the earth. There is such an abundant supply. If you go to England, they will say, “Oh we are running out, the world is coming to an end.” If you go to Canada they say, “We have enough of it, at least for the next hundred years, and by that we will have even more.”

And someone says the French have tested where they build soil. I say I don’t want to build soil, that’s too much work and there is no need for it. It’s harmful to the environment. Keep turning up the soil, especially if you have to go down one or two feet deep and bring up all the bad soil that’s down there. Just think now Sophie if it takes 500 years to build one inch of top soil in nature. Man should not in a year try to do it himself in a much shorter time because you run off from that.

It’s going to be harmful to the environment. Just think if we don’t need top soil, which is filled with weeds and that all the work and the harm the weeds do to your garden. Wouldn’t it be much better to take selective parts of our natural resources and not try to improve the existing soil? Wedon’t have 500 years and adding one inch of top soil filled with weeds is not the answer to a successful garden. So, Sophie I am going to ask you to think about this and compare some of the things I have just said. If it takes nature 500 years for one inch of top soil, they don’t have a choice but the nature can do what is natural and has no choice to do anything different, but we do and we can be successful, but at the same time be friendly to nature and not harm her if we use Square Foot Gardening.

If we go back to single row gardening and plowing up a big area of land that we don’t really need, that is not helping Mother Nature at all. Remember also that one of the biggest advantages of Square Foot Gardening is that it takes only 20% of the space. Now if we can produce the same harvest in only 20% of the space that means we don’t have to follow all of the rules of other gardening methods that are really just “hand-me-downs” from farming, including the French Intensive Method.

As you probably know, that method started in France as a suburban farming method and they made great advances because they located them close to the city which eliminated a lot of travel and transportation. That in turn reduced the cost of the produce as well as wasn’t as harmful to the environment. But what we are saying with Square Foot Gardening is that your garden can be right outside your door, 10 feet away, so you don’t even have to go to the store to buy your produce, so that changes things quite a bit. So please give that some thought but I do appreciate your letter and I love talking to you about other methods and how you’re doing and best wishes and happy gardening.